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Late Saturday night, a Taliban truck bomb ripped through a military base in eastern Afghanistan, injuring 77 U.S. troops. It also sent shrapnel up to a mile away, killing an Afghan policeman and four civilians.

It's been six years since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, and the rebuilding continues. In Mississippi, the largest project under construction is the Port of Gulfport. Some $500 million in statewide recovery funds are being used to rebuild the port. The state calls it a critical resource, but some residents hit hard by Katrina fear they won't see the benefits.

The Port of Gulfport sits just off Highway 90, a main road that runs all along the coast. Katrina's 30-foot storm surge nearly destroyed this facility, which is the size of about 50 city blocks.

Scientists say they have figured out how a very clever virus outwits a very hungry caterpillar.

The caterpillar is the gypsy moth in its larval stage, and the invasive species damages roughly a million acres of forest in the U.S. each year by devouring tree leaves.

But the damage would be greater if it weren't for something called a baculovirus that can infect these caterpillars and cause them to engage in reckless, even suicidal behavior, scientists say. The virus is so effective that the government actually sprays it on trees to help control gypsy moth outbreaks.

NATO planes are still in the air and bombing targets over Libya and Moammar Gadhafi is still on the loose. Nonetheless, NATO is taking something of a victory lap in the wake of an operation that broke new ground for the military alliance.

But the Libyan operation also raised questions about its mission, its future role in such conflicts, and how it determines when to intervene.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told NPR he sees the Libya operation as a template for future NATO missions and proof the United Nations can outsource its muscle to the alliance.

Last year, as part of a reporting project, we bought a toxic asset — one of those complicated financial instruments that that nearly brought down the global economy.

We spent $1000 of our own money and bought a tiny slice of a bond backed by mortgages. We paid just a fraction of what it originally cost. It was such a good deal, we thought maybe we'd make a few bucks, which we'd give to charity.

For several decades, psychiatrists who work with the dying have been trying to come up with new psychotherapies that can help people cope with the reality of their death. One of these therapies asks the dying to tell the story of their life.

This end-of-life treatment, called dignity therapy, was created by a man named Harvey Chochinov. When Chochinov was a young psychiatrist working with the dying, he had a powerful experience with one of the patients he was trying to counsel — a man with an inoperable brain tumor.

When Leon Panetta was CIA director, he helped lead the effort to find and kill Osama bin Laden.

Now, Panetta may have an even harder job.

He's two months into his tenure as secretary of defense and here's what Panetta has to do: Run two ground wars, keep up the fight against al-Qaida and at the same time figure out how to cut what could end up being a trillion dollars from a Pentagon's budget.

In Libya, there's growing concern over the vast arsenals of weapons that have flooded on to the streets since Moammar Gadhafi's ouster. Warehouses of surface-to-air missiles, mortars and anti-tank mines have been looted.

Soon after the rebels overran the headquarters of Gadhafi's much feared Khamis Brigade on the south side of Tripoli, rebels and ordinary citizens scavenged through a bombed-out warehouse on the base.

On Sept. 12, 2001, Ali H. Soufan, a special agent with the FBI, was handed a secret file. Soufan had spent nearly a decade investigating terrorism cases, like the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. He says that this file was one he had requested before the attacks, and that had it been given to him earlier it may have helped to prevent them.

It's been said many times, today: that one of Sept. 11's most significant legacy are the two wars still being fought the by the United States. Perhaps, that's why this set of pictures feels so important. It shows American service members commemorating the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 in simple terms: raising an American flag or bowing in prayer:

It seems there are two types of stories about how children who experienced Sept. 11: First, of course, there are the stories about the children who lost parents on that day, and then there are those who are too young to remember what life was like before the attacks.

NPR's Zoe Chace talked to some of those kids in New York. She filed this report:

Kate Bralauer is 11. She's from Manhattan, she's never seen the skyline with the towers in it. But 9/11 matters to her.

NORAD scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to escort an American Airlines flight traveling from Los Angeles to New York, today, after three passengers locked themselves in a bathroom and refused to come out.

The AP reports:

Flight 34 landed safely after 4 p.m. Sunday. The nature of the incident was unclear but a law enforcement official says it isn't thought to be terrorism.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Aaron Brown came into work at CNN still preparing for his new role as the anchor of the network's flagship evening broadcast. He wasn't supposed to go on air for several more weeks, but on that morning and in the days that followed, Brown became the guide for millions of viewers glued to their television sets.

As he scurried to the roof of CNN's headquarters in New York shortly after the towers were hit, Brown remembers stopping in the middle of 8th Avenue and telling himself to stay calm.

John Ashcroft's term as attorney general under George W. Bush was redefined by Sept. 11.

And he tells Guy Raz, host of weekends on All Things Considered, that the techniques endorsed by his Justice Department were necessary, from warrantless wiretaps to so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Defending The Patriot Act

One of Ashcroft's most controversial legacies is the Patriot Act, a piece of legislation that dramatically expanded the surveillance capabilities of law enforcement for monitoring terrorism suspects.

NPR's Joel Rose was in New Jersey today, where he stumbled upon another Sept. 11 tribute:

A different breed of heroes from September 11th gathered across the Hudson River from Ground Zero. Dozens of service and therapy dogs from around the country gathered with their handlers at Liberty State Park. The event, billed as "Finding One Another," was intended to celebrate the contributions of search and rescue dogs on 9/11 and since.

Though it is widely recognized as "one of the finest pieces of American presidential prose," as The Associated Press wrote in 2008, the "Bixby Letter" that President George W. Bush read this morning during the Sept. 11 memorial service in New York City has been the subject of several questions over the years.

Today was a day of mourning for the country. The 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 was marked by prayers, solemn ceremonies, vows to remember the victims and pledges to never let terrorists fundamentally change the American way of life.

A truck bombing at an American base in eastern Afghanistan late Saturday killed two Afghan civilians — one of them a 3-year-old girl — and wounded nearly 80 U.S. military personnel, The Associated Press reports.

Although thousands of miles from ground zero, the Muslim community in San Diego, Calif., drew attention after Sept. 11, 2001. Two of the hijackers lived there. They also prayed at a local mosque, where noted radical Imam Anwar al-Awlaki preached. Recently, several men from the Somali Muslim community were arrested. They've been charged with aiding a Somali terrorist group.

A local imam has been working to open dialogue between Muslims and the larger community in San Diego in part to combat the suspicion that arose after the local ties came to light.

The Department of Homeland Security and state governments spend billions of dollars every year on domestic security, helping cities and counties buy up-to-date equipment and strategies for defeating terrorists.

Established in November 2002, the new department absorbed 22 different federal agencies, with the idea of unifying homeland security efforts. But after all this time, have those efforts made us safer?

At least 77 American soldiers are wounded after a truck bomb targeted a base west of Kabul. Two separate roadside bombs have killed 10 Afghan civilians.

At an American military base in Wardak Province, a truck full of firewood rammed into the main gate before exploding in flames and shrapnel. Military officials said a blast wall absorbed most of the impact, but nearly 100 Afghan and American personnel suffered injuries. Wardak borders the Afghan capital, Kabul, but the province is considered to be partially under Taliban control.